Exploring life and the Christian faith.

I was brought up as a southern Baptist Christian. I was taught that homosexuality is not only a choice…but a sin. For many years of my early life, I believed it. As I got older, I began questioning this…and eventually my faith. This attitude toward same sex love and relationships seemed so contradictory to the love of Jesus.

The catalyst for my disengaging completely from this line of belief was when my best friend, a proud gay man who loves Jesus, was asked to leave our church. He wasn’t welcome. I looked around at men who were knowingly having affairs (among other things) who refused to worship with my friend simply because he is gay. For me, it was the final straw.

From that point on, I took it upon myself to educate myself…to read, watch documentaries, engage, hear and listen to my LGBTQ friends and family. I am a straight, white woman. I recognize the privilege that comes with that. I have spent much of the last two years of my life learning and searching. Trying to find ways that I can help my fellow humans. To make this world a better place.

I have three children. Raising them as a single mother is a difficult task. Add to that the fact that I am raising them in the close-minded, often racist, bigoted, and homophobic rural south. I can’t move. I can’t take them to a bigger city where there is more diversity…more culture. But what I can do is make HERE better. Or try anyway. I look at my children and I wonder….what if one or more or all of them are gay? So how could I NOT work to make this world a better, more loving and accepting place for them?? Any mother should. And if your mother won’t….this mother will.

Photo/Essay project highlighting the LGBTQ and Ally Community in Obion County (a rural area in TN). Some participants still live in the area, while others moved away after growing up there.